Lemonade Stand by adwriter

There’s something I find particularly disquieting about the early capitalistic endeavors of children. A sign drawn in multicolor marker in hand at the street corner: a desperate shake or wave of the sign not just informing you, not just asking you, but begging you to buy their exorbitantly priced lemonade.

It’s not as if you can pretend to have overlooked their place of business in the favor of another: you would feel quite immoral. How could one ignore that youthful exuberance, those seeking eyes, and the angelic halos cast by the summer sun?

Coming across the typical lemonade stand, at first, you are likely to feel a call to flight. Oh, if one were to stop at every lemonade stand! You try to look away so as not to be entrapped by the guilt-inspiring tractor beam of puppy-dog faces.

The second instinct, however, is one of pity. While these young boys and girls are not likely to be risking any great financial investment, there is some great hazard at hand to their naive egos. And for a horrifying instant, one worries that there is no one but oneself to save their enterprise and their innocent faith in capitalism.

On approach to the rickety stand, young eyes reeling you in like a floundering fish, you can’t help but feel awkward. For an instant, you wonder if you had any choice, in the first place, as to the, now, inevitable purchase.

You’ve entered the radius of proximity of prospective customer. But at a lemonade stand, a prospective customer is a guaranteed customer, and you know you’ve been involuntarily committed. The little capitalists know likewise. You pretend you still have options, and maybe you stall as if stumped between a choice of Country Time instant lemonade, or Country Time instant lemonade.

You look quickly for pricing information, none to be found, so you ask with a smile and sparkle in your eye: “How much is this, here, lemonade by the glass?” The terse response “two-fifty” rings so loud in your ears with the tone of impatience and unfriendliness, that you forget to be outraged by the price.

Your grudgingly keep a smile on your face and pull for your wallet in sheer embarrassment. You’ve been conned, and you know it. Couldn’t they at least hide the lemonade powder, so you didn’t know you were being ripped off? But you realize that that is a more advanced capitalistic lesson that they have yet to learn–a lesson they don’t need to learn as long as they have baby faces.

And when you receive your half-full Dixie cup of instant lemonade, you think you’ve reached maximum exasperation. That is, until you’re handed your 50 cents change and notice the youthful eyes intentionally avoiding the giant fish-bowl labeled “Tips” in hand-written three-inch bubble letters. And you falter, you almost choke on your first and last sip of lemonade, and you deposit one quarter after another with protracted, yet concealed, bitterness.

The quarters still ringing in your ears, you walk away, hurt, wounded and extorted. Such are the lessons that dispel the myth of childish innocence and stand as testament to their ability to effectively exploit the capitalist system.

Originally composed June 24, 2008

Hannah Montanna is just so hip and sexy. Why wouldn't you want to buy her jeans?

I was resentfully assaulted by this whole Hannah Montana sensation upon a rare visit to my local Wal-Mart. Images of her plastic face decked with copious amounts of foundation, heavily liner-laden porn star eyes, lips sparkling with her own brand of lip gloss were enlarged and plastered on display bins and posters at every turn in the store.

Her face was branded on bicycle helmets, movies, compact discs, backpacks, alarm clocks, swimming suits, clothes, lunch boxes, jewelry, stickers, games, scooters, play phones, bath beach towels, notebooks, planners, key chains, iPod docks, dolls, books, folding chairs, blankets…I’m frankly too fed up to go on.

Now I have nothing against Miley Cyrus personally, but don’t you think she’s a little young at the age of 15 to be in bed with fat dandies like Wal-Mart and Disney? Wait, there’s no age of consent law when it comes to selling your body to a corporation. But this is really undignified. One could say she entered into these agreements on her own free will. But these corporations own her. They made her who she is. They put her up in front of the lights, up in hot new clothes, in layers of makeup, and they purchased the rights to her body for just a couple million dollars a year. Despite all the money they’ve paid for her services, they know they’re getting the better deal. They are ravishing this young woman, and they’ll gang bang all the money they can out of her hot little bod until she’s dried up on drugs.

What’s even more disturbing is how parents aren’t disturbed that their little girls are eating it all right up. And that their pubescent boys are salivating at the mouth. Sure it’s effective marketing, but what does it reveal about the idiocy of our culture? Are we not concerned about the dignity of our girls who are parading around as little Hannah Montana wannabes? Are we not concerned that this underage sex-icon is setting the standard for young women? Is this perfectly-primped Barbie-doll-superstar millionaire-teenager, really the role model we want our girls to aspire to and compare themselves against?

Of course not. But is Wal-Mart going to pull Hannah Montana items from their shelves in moral indignation? No. Are Wal-Mart customers going to boycott in outrage, until they do? No. Hannah Montana is the product of Disney, a great and paternal corporation. When a great and paternal corporation endorses something, the customer is obliged to endorse it as well. Who is a single man to disrespect a great and paternal corporation?